


Catching Rudy

by ofunaq



Category: Teeth - Hannah Moskowitz
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 05:39:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8878066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofunaq/pseuds/ofunaq





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Meadow Lion (Meadow_Lion)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meadow_Lion/gifts).



I wake in a cold sweat, Teeth’s scream still ringing in my ears. Dreams of him still haunt my nights. I squirm to check the time. 4am, and the first light of dawn is suffusing the sky. Time for Diana to sneak back home to her own bed.

I trace the line of her shoulder with my fingertips, and shrug off a guilty pang, as I imagine the feel of Teeth’s rough scaliness instead. We’re still intertwined, her skin sweaty and wet against mine. My tongue snakes out, tasting the salty creases of her shoulder.

“Mmm,” her hand pulls me closer in, and her nails dig into my skin. It was inevitable, I think, after Teeth left. Who else could we turn to? And yet we seldom mention what came before – there’s a castle of silence to his memory, and very occasionally we scale its ramparts, when the moon is full, and the tide is high, and even the pounding of my blood in my ears as we fuck cannot drown out the memories.

Those are the times when we tell each other the stories, twisting and turning the threads, trying to find a way out. Is there anything we could have done to change the story? Is there some grand plan here? Are we created simply to suffer, our happiness sacrificed to give meaning in someone else’s narrative of guilt and shame? There are no answers.

And so we make our own bubbles of time and space. Most weeks, we see each other in the market: I sell some of my catch, and now Diana comes down to buy the fish for her mother. And most nights, Diana slips out after dark, and quietly lets herself into my room. I close my eyes and hold my breath, as I hear her clothes fall to the ground as she strips them off. Then in a heartbeat she’s there, pressed up close to me, her skin deliciously cool and clammy against mine. For a moment, time stands still, and my heart lifts, and I feel as if Teeth is with me again, miraculously returned. And sometimes in the dark, as I press myself deep inside her, and everything is slippery wetness, I imagine that I have my fishboy there with me instead.

Diana coughs, deep in her throat. “You’re nice and hard, this early in the morning. Thinking of someone cute? Sorry I can’t stay and help you with that. I’ll just have to leave you to indulge your fishy fantasies on your own.” God, she’s quick. “I really do hope you find him again someday, you know.” And understanding.

I kiss her, long and wet and warm. I’m trying to tell her more than words can, that I want her, and I want Teeth, and I love them both, differently, in ways that are incomparable, but not in conflict. I really hope she gets it.

I watch her silently as she dresses, silhouetted against the pale grey sky. A quick kiss on my forehead, and she’s gone.

* * *

I lie awake, listening to the pounding of the surf, imagining I can still hear Teeth’s scream in the sound of the waves, beautiful and terrifying, drawing me in like a siren song.

A lull in the waves, and I hear it again, louder this time, and clearer. A great upwelling of desperate hope, and in a moment I’m dressed and dashing to the dock. And when I get there, there’s a boat I don’t recognise, with a giant tank of seaweed on the deck.

“Rudy. Ruuuuuudy. Come and get me.”

I lean over, not daring to believe. And then I’m in the water, and Teeth is there in my arms, and I’m holding him so close I can hardly breathe. I’m sobbing and laughing and crying all at once.

“You’re a wet fish. I thought you’d be pleased to see me,” he says. But he smiles, so I know he’s teasing me. The happiness inside is like molten gold, burning through my veins. In that smile, I suddenly realise he has new teeth growing, short and sharp, taking the place of the ones that the fishermen ruined, and I’m grinning back, like a little kid at Christmas.

Then I kiss him, cold and salty, and in that moment nothing else matters, and his mouth on my mouth is the whole world and forever.

At last we come apart, gasping. I want all of him, all at once, but I also want to savour every moment. And I need to know what happened, what _he_ wants. And my heart sinks, as I think of the Enki fish I catch every day. What will _he_ think? How can he ever embrace what I’ve become? Sometimes, I fucking hate humans.

“You’re shivering. Come and see my boat,” he says. He’s different. Not a lot, just … more confident. More assured. Like he knows what he wants, and how to ask for it.

* * *

I’m sitting on the deck. I’m still in my sodden clothes, and I can’t stop shivering. Teeth is in the tank, chewing something. I’m too cold to think, too cold to get warm again.

He flicks his tail, and glides halfway out of the tank. Propping himself up with one arm, he presses something to my lips. I open my mouth to take it, and chew automatically.

Gross. It’s a mashed up lump of half-chewed slimy, slightly sandy seaweed. I nearly spit it out, but Teeth is talking to me, telling me to chew, to swallow, and in this moment, I’d do whatever he asked. In my head, I’m back in the cave, and Teeth is saving me all over again, feeding me a miracle cure, and filling my body with healing warmth.

And suddenly, I’m not cold anymore, it’s like I’m wrapped in a warm fluffy blanket. There’s a light in my head, like the blinding first rays of a sunrise over the ocean. All I can ask is “How?”

“Did I ever tell you, I’m _really_ clever?” He’s smug, and gleeful, and excited.

Then he tells me his story. How he sailed away from the island. How he got sicker, and ran out of fish, and couldn’t catch any more in the desert of the deep water. All he had was a huge pile of seaweed, the fishermen’s bait. In desperation, he cut it up with my knife, and mashed it up with the remains of his teeth, and forced himself to eat it. And it worked: the magic of the Enki fish was right there in the seaweed all along! At last, he found another island, and traded the stolen boat for a smaller one, with a tank for fresh seaweed and himself. And sailed back to save his fish, and me.

He touches my hand, and I trace the webs between his fingers. I trail one fingertip down to his wrist, where I feel a roughness, a criss-crossing of cuts and scars. I look up enquiringly. “I cut myself. With your knife. It helped.” As if that answered anything. “I need you.” And he slithers and hand-walks his way to the little cabin. “Come on!”

The cabin has a tiny cot along one wall, but it’s big enough for the two of us. My clothes are on the floor, and I’m straddling him. I reach down to touch his chest. He shivers, just a little, but he doesn’t pull away. He breathes a little faster.

I hear my own heart pounding in my ears, as I watch as my fingers trace the lines of his ribs, the old scars that still mar his beautiful, scaly skin.

His hand reaches down, and I feel his touch, cool and damp, tracing the tendons of my inner thigh. He reaches lower, hesitates for a moment. “Rudy, are you sure you want this?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” I’ve never been more sure of anything in my whole life.


End file.
